News and Open Source Releases

Yes, it was exactly 18 years ago, on 31 May 2001, that DistroWatch was first published. It wasn't quite the comprehensive website covering free operating system that it is today, but it was a start - a single page comparing a dozen Linux distributions in a table format, with major features and package versions. Many of the projects popular in those days, such as Caldera OpenLinux, Corel Linux, Progeny Debian or Libranet GNU/Linux died long time ago, but others, like Slackware Linux, Debian, Red Hat or openSUSE continue to thrive in various forms to this day. If you'd like to see what this website looked like in 2001, please take a look at this snapshot provided by Archive.org. From this modest start listing just 12 Linux distributions DistroWatch evolved, adding BSDs and other free operating systems to the ever-growing DistroWatch database. Organising the information of this chaotic bazaar of open-source products into a structured and logical way continues to be a challenge even today - our database currently contains a total of 899 operating systems of which nearly 300 are considered active. Before opening a bottle of champagne, I'd like to say a big thank-you to all our readers who continue to provide valuable suggestions and corrections, as well as our past and present contributors - notably Jesse Smith, currently the main site maintainer, but also Dr W T Zhu, Susan Linton, Caitlyn Martin, (the late) Robert Storey, Chris Smart and many others who have helped with great articles and valuable insight over the past 18 years. So cheers to all as we look forward to many more years of covering the world of free operating systems! (Ladislav Bodnar, founder of DistroWatch).

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